The effect of level of institutionalization and crisis perception on managers' anxiety: A qualitative research in tourism sector

The aim of this study is to examine in depth the relationship between institutionalization, crisis and anxiety from the perspectives of senior managers in the context of accommodation businesses. How senior managers in hotel businesses evaluate institutionalization, the effects of the institutionalization level of the hotel and the crisis perception of the managers on the level of anxiety, the effects of the anxiety experienced on the personnel, and being the first research to study qualitatively with these three variables, together with the crises experienced so far by including the pandemic crisis in the research adds originality to the study. In the research, phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research designs, was adopted and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 senior managers. The interviews were analyzed with descriptive analysis and content analysis. MAXQDA 2020 program was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was determined that hotel enterprises experienced serious personnel loss during the crisis, the personnel changed the sector, and there were serious problems in the supply of qualified personnel. In addition, it has been determined that the sales, income and profitability figures and hotel occupancy rates decreased significantly during the pandemic crisis when compared to the previous crises, and digitalization was emphasized during the pandemic crisis. Moreover, although the level of institutionalization and the crisis perceptions of the managers differ, it was found that the managers experienced work anxiety, future anxiety and health anxiety during the crisis. The desire of the personnel to leave the job increased due to the anxiety caused by the crisis, the working motivation of the personnel decreased during the crisis and the employees exhibited anti-productive work behavior during the crisis are other important findings as well.